Younger drivers are often assumed to be the target audience for lectures about distracted driving, but many of them pick up risky habits from their parents, according to Tina Brunetti Sayer, principal engineer for Toyota's Collaborative Safety Research Center in Ann Arbor.

"As a mother of a teenager I often remind myself that the things I do behind the wheel go a long way in setting a powerful example," said Brunetti Sayer, winner of the 2015 Free Press Automotive Leadership Award for Community Involvement.

Brunetti Sayer along with an advertising agency called 360i and researchers from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, created TeenDrive365.com, a website that highlights how parents influence their teenagers' driving behavior both positively and negatively.

What the research found is that a large percentage of parents, to the extent they talk about safe driving at all, fall into a "do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" syndrome.

The research is based on surveys in which both teenagers and parents are asked such questions as: "How frequently do you think your parents eat food while driving?" and "How often do you eat in the car?"

"What we found is that everybody overestimates what everybody else does," Brunetti Sayer said. "So it's even harder as a parent because every bad example you set is magnified in their child's eyes."

Among the tools available on the site are an online commercial tagged "Parents Who Drive Bad Anonymous," in which mothers and fathers confess their motoring sins in a meeting that includes their children.

Acknowledging that teenagers are not the only ones whose driving skills are jeopardized by their smartphone obsessions.

There also is a feature titled "Masters of the Wheel" in which professional race car drivers talk about their safety lessons and the importance of parental examples.

The most vivid element is a distracted driving simulator that uses Oculus Rift virtual reality technology to illustrate how common distractions easily cause drivers to leave the road or lose sight of other vehicles.

"By examining actions and expectations of teens and parents around the country, we will be able to dig deeper into how a teen's driving behaviors differ from what their parents believe they helped instill," Brunetti Sayer said.